Rome didn't become the capital of modern Italy until...

NAMES AND FACES - INFORMED SOURCE

August 10, 1993|By L.M. Boyd

Rome didn't become the capital of modern Italy until pretty late, actually - 1870. Same year New York City's F.A.O. Schwarz toyshop opened on Broadway at 9th, Sherwin-Williams Paint Co. went into business in Cleveland and the Smith Brothers patented their renowned cough drops.

Item 7144C in our Love and War man's file: When a single woman says her love life is ''complicated,'' she means: ''He's married.''

Sudan's pyramids outnumber Egypt's pyramids. And what do we know about them? Nothin'. ''Home, Sweet Home'' wound up with the curious distinction during the Civil War as the only song popular both in the North and the South.

Mash coffee beans with a mortar and pestle. Knead in animal fat. Roll the mix into balls. Eat same for nourishment and stimulation. That's how certain early African warriors did it. History suggests it works best just before you go on the attack.

Five times as many people live to be at least 100 years old on Okinawa as on the major islands of Japan. Explain that.

Q. You said the original calypso started out as some sort of code. Like what?

A. African slaves in the fields of Trinidad were forbidden to talk but not forbidden to sing. So in the French-Creole dialect called patois, they sang to each other constantly - stories, warnings, gossip, complaints, whatever.